UI design pattern tips: 'sticky' fixed navigation

In the latest in a series looking at website design patterns, Chris Bank of UXPin looks at 'sticky' fixed navigation.

Shares

Once someone starts using your website or web application, they need to know where to go and how to get there at any point. If they can’t navigate through your your application easily, you'll quickly lose them. Thus, designing effective navigation in your web application is crucial.

In this series for Creative Bloq, Chris Bank of UXPin, the UX design app, discusses the importance of navigation design patterns and details examples from some of the hottest websites and web apps today.

The problem

The user wants to have access to the menus at any time while on the web page.

The solution

As you scroll down the page...

The top, side, or bottom navigation stays in place while a page is scrolled. In some cases, headings from sub-sections may also become fixed while scrolling and replace or be appended to the existing fixed navigation.

The main nav bar stays stuck at the top of the screen

The main navigation bar for both Google Plus and Pinterest sticks to the top of the page, allowing users to quickly access those menu items and filters whenever they need to.

When paired with the Infinite Scroll pattern, a sticky navigation menu can be a great convenience for users who scroll past more than the first page's worth of content.